By the final days of 2014, the in-custody death of Charles Eimers had left many Key Westers with an uneasy feeling.

“It’s as though every agency we rely on,” said community advocate Christine Russel, “failed, one after the other, to shed any light on what happened. Instead, the cloud over that man’s death has only gotten bigger and darker.”

“They knew to call their attorneys within the next hour or so, but they didn’t secure the dashcam recordings, or the witnesses, and they almost cremated the body before autopsy,” said Satya [Katherine] Gregory, who participated in last Sunday’s march for police accountability in the death of Eimers that occurred on Thanksgiving day, 2013.

It seems as though 2014 was dominated by endless scandals of alleged cover-up, bursting one after the other like stinky bubbles from a poisoned soup.

This week The Blue Paper was able to review the recent deposition of E. Hunt Scheuerman, the former Monroe County Medical Examiner regarding his conclusions about Eimers’ in-custody death.

To rule the death an accident, he relied, he said, exclusively on the information provided by FDLE special agent Kathy Smith. Since then Kathy Smith has been put on administrative leave, pending investigation of mortgage fraud and perjury she allegedly committed with her ex-husband Scott Smith. KWPD Captain Scott Smith was the supervisor of operations at the time the Eimers incident occurred. That conflict of interest now seems like a run-away train. In his deposition, Scheuerman admits that Agent Smith never told him that witnesses stated Eimers face was covered in sand, or that three witnesses claimed a Taser had been used or that Eimers had blood running out of his right ear.

When asked if those facts [if true] would have changed his conclusions, “And specifically would or could cause you to change that manner of death to one from accident to one of homicide, correct?” Scheuerman answer was yes: “It could affect my determination of the manner of death.”

[At this time Scheuerman, the former Monroe County Medical Examiner, has been retained as a paid expert by KWPD.]

A common element among demonstrators was a strong sense of cover-up having reached the highest levels.

During his deposition, Scheuerman admitted that even if Eimers, who had been alive on life support for a week following the arrest, had died smothered in the sand the sand likely wouldn’t have been found in his airways at autopsy, “It’s the body’s mechanism of cleaning the airways. You have mucus glands that produce mucus and then you have hair cells that sweep up and out. And so you sort of clean foreign material out, your body does itself.”

However, it is clear from the report that the Grand Jurors were led to believe the absence of sand in Eimers’ airways was clear proof that he had not been smothered in the sand. That revelation brings yet more doubt over the already controversial Grand Jury deliberations.

“I don’t know if any of the officers are guilty of a crime,” said Gregory, “but I think there should have been a public trial with all of the facts for everyone to see.”

“Where to turn? Who can we trust?” asks Russel. Even in happy Key West on Sunday December 28, 2014, approximately 60 people of all ages were concerned enough to march down the streets asking for justice.

“What now?” we asked Louie Wray, one march organizer, “This is just the beginning. We are not going to give up. Who is ready to come back with two friends next time?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

For access to all articles written by Naja and Arnaud Girard on the in-custody death of Charles Eimers click here.

Arnaud and Naja Girard, owners and editors of the new, digital, Key West the Newspaper (The Blue Paper) previously reported for the former Key West The Newspaper, Key West’s longest running independent weekly, published by Dennis Reeves Cooper, Ph.D., from January 1994 until November 2012. The Girards are perhaps best known for their discovery of and extensive research surrounding the US Navy’s 1951 claim of ownership of Wisteria Island but are also responsible for top investigative stories including breaking news coverage of the highly controversial in-custody-death of Charles Eimers on Thanksgiving Day 2013, the catastrophic police tasing of Matthew Shawn Murphy, and the property tax scandal involving Balfour Beatty to name a few. Arnaud and Naja have lived in Key West since 1986.

9 Responses to “Medical Examiner Admits He May Have Been Misled by FDLE’s Agent Kathy Smith / Key West Marches For Police Accountability”

Thank you for keeping the light on this tragic situation. America is a great country. This type of corruption & abuse undermines everything we stand for. Here’s to a fantastic new year for all & God Bless America.

the purpose being served is self evident. its the ongoing beat of the incessant coverups drum you hear feverishly being played in the background.
I sure hope the kwtd [key west thug dept] fails in their attempt to neuter scheuerman and he after seeing more of what has been withheld chooses to decline the ‘expert witness’ contractor job and files for an amended autopsy upon reconsideration.
the truth of this innocent mans killing at the hands of the few police on scene playing tv swat muscle cops and their perjured ‘cya’ reporting must be held high for justice sake and the thug[s] put behind bars watching from the inside out for this tragedy of major proportion.
in the mean time the head of the cop shop known as the chief of police needs be run out of town on a rail or in the alternate busted to meter maid. he is a total disgrace.
a pox on them all and may mr eimers sand covered face and bleeding ear give all the guilty nightmares to their ending days.

I had an interesting conversation at Higgs Beach this afternoon with a 78-year-old vicious van dweller criminal, who said she is a retired Ohio deputy sheriff, who went full-time to living in her van this past spring, because her income is limited and that is all she can afford.

Her name is Pat, and she told me she’d be happy to tell this story to Bill Becker on his US 1 Radio show, and to Mayor Craig Cates and to Police Chief Donnie Lee and to Paul Clarin, Publisher of The Citizen, and to Arnaud and Naja Girard at the blue paper. I said I am told Bill Becker reads my daily posts at http://www.goodmorningkeywest.com and I would give Naja a heads up.

So, Pat said, it’s Christmas Eve, just a little over a week ago. She goes into the Shell station/convenience store on the corner of North Roosevelt Blvd. and Kennedy Drive, and asks the lady manager if she can park her vehicle in the station’s parking area over night? The lady manager says sure, use a handicap parking place, since she has a handicap sticker on her van. Pat says she always asks if she can park over night, at Walmart, high way rest stops, etc.

So, 1:30 in the morning, Pat is awakened by metal tapping against one of the van’s windows and the side of the van, and hearing two people outside, a man and a woman, yelling for her to wake up and come out of the van, this is the police! This is repeated a few times. along with it’s raining and cold, and they are standing out there in it, getting wet. Get her butt out there! She cracks a window and tells them she hears them and is coming out the side door. They keep at it.

Out on the parking lot, the two cops give Pat more hell, they can take her to jail. The Shell station manager called them and complained about her being there. She tells them the manager told her she could stay there. The cops say the manager didn’t give her permission, she is trespassing, they can take her to jail. Pat says she is not trespassing, but she will leave. She walks around the van to get into the driver’s seat, as the cops retreat and she doesn’t know what happens to them after that. She leaves.

I said I bet those cops were not called by the Shell station manager.

Christmas Eve. I bet those cops were Christians. Praise Jesus! Their Lord and Savior. Who was homeless. I bet Mayor Cates will love hearing that story, proud he will be of those two cops.

I told Pat that’s how the Key West cops are with homeless people, including people who live in their vehicles. I said that’s how Charles Eimers, who was known to be unarmed and no threat to the cops, got killed: the cops thought he was living in his car.

I said I had told Hatman to tell the judge, when his case for living in his vehicle came up, that his van was his home, the only home he could afford, and it was unconstitutional for the city to take his home away from him. Hatman had said he would tell the judge that, but he didn’t; I was at his trial and wanted to ring his neck for not telling the judge that.

I told Pat not to expect anything from Craig Cates, nor from Donie Lee. Maybe Paul Clarin would be moved by her story. Maybe Bill Becker would like to have her on the air with him. Pat gave me her business card with her phone number on it. Interesting, she tells me her story after I published at http://www.goodmorningnkeywest.com this morning, about Kali going on the warpath in Key West, America and beyond.

One of my goodmorningkeywest.com readers, who also reads the blue paper, sent this article yesterday:

Shut Up Officer

Time to start picketing these so-called “memorial” funds and funerals if this sort of mindless fearmongering nonsense doesn’t stop.
“With the increasing number of ambush-style attacks against our officers, I am deeply concerned that a growing anti-government sentiment in America is influencing weak-minded individuals to launch violent assaults against the men and women working to enforce our laws and keep our nation safe,” said Craig Floyd, chairman and CEO of the memorial fund.
“Enough is enough,” he said in a statement. “We need to tone down the rhetoric and rally in support of law enforcement and against lawlessness.”
Bite me Craig.
Here are the facts. There were 126 on-duty deaths reported among all officers in 2014. There are approximately 1 million sworn officers between federal, state, county and local government entities (and another couple of million employees who are not sworn; that is, they are not officers and do not have arrest powers, such as dispatchers and clerks.)
This is a rate of fatality of 12.6 per 100,000. Sounds bad, right?
Wrong.
If you’re a logger, you have a fatality rate ten times that of a cop.
A fisherman? Almost ten times — 117 per 100,000.
A pilot? 53.4 per 100,000. Yes, really — it’s about four times as dangerous to fly a plane or chopper than be a cop.
The guy who puts your roof on? 40.5 per 100,000 — about three times as dangerous.
How about iron workers — you know, the guys who put up the buildings you work in? Yeah, those dudes. Three times the risk of a cop in dying, most from falls, being crushed by heavy materials or welding accidents.
Your garbage man has a risk of death twice that of a cop. Why? He gets hit by cars or crushed by heavy equipment (yes, it would suck to get caught in that trash compactor in the garbage truck!)
How about the lineman that repairs your power lines? Slightly less than double the risk of a cop, and of course the means by which they die are falls and electrocution, mostly.
Truck drivers? Close to double the risk, most from traffic accidents.
Farmers? Same risk, roughly; getting caught in a combine is a ****ty way to die.
Or you could just be a construction laborer. Your risk in that profession is materially higher than that of a cop (17.3 .vs. 12.6) as well but nobody cheers for you. Never mind that without said laborers you wouldn’t have a house or an office to work in.
So let’s cut the crap, eh? Being a cop isn’t particularly dangerous as occupations go.
Sworn officers are in fact officers of the court. Lying is unacceptable among both them and any organization that represents them. That means this butt-clown as well as the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association in NYC and Patrick Lynch, their President. Pathological liars are worthy of the middle finger, not respect, no matter who they are.
Further, these organizations are not going to get any sympathy from me as long as we have cops arresting anyone for “DUI” when they choose to sleep off their alcohol in a parking lot rather than drive, nor are you going to get to claim “valor” without a loud pushback from people like myself as long as there is even one cop who reaches a settlement for his alleged attempt to create pornography with the intended target being solicited as a means to void an alcohol possession citation. That’s official corruption and if I pulled something like that I’d be prosecuted instead of being able to slough off the “settlement” on the taxpayers of the town.
Then there’s this sort of corruption:
It’s not a slowdown — it’s a virtual work stoppage.
NYPD traffic tickets and summonses for minor offenses have dropped off by a staggering 94 percent following the execution of two cops — as officers feel betrayed by the mayor and fear for their safety, The Post has learned.
So either 94% of the stops and summonses were never justified in the first place, in which case the entire NYPD is nothing more than a band of felons committing armed robbery by the tens of thousands a week or this “action” constitutes acting as an accessory to crime after the fact.
Either way these are not cops they’re crooks. In either case every single one of these “officers” deserves to be arrested and thrown into prison for decades; odds are it’s the first of the two possibilities, by the way, which means that this “action” is as close as you’re going to get to an admission of tens of thousands of armed robberies committed by the cops each and every week.
If law enforcement officers want respect they can start by deserving it and that means cutting the crap — including false claims of “outrageously dangerous” working conditions that in fact are less hazardous on a statistical basis than the guy who picks up my household trash, an immediate and complete cessation of false arrests on bogus charges and full prosecution of each and every member of such an agency who is alleged to have abused someone in the line of their duties.
Let me know when that happens and at that point my middle finger will be retracted — but not one second before.

Government culture always covers up for other government culture.Prosecutors seldom charge the police because of retribution .The states attorney’s and prosecutors can rig the questions to a grand jury. Anything detrimental to law enforcement they seem to leave out.